Wellington activists for Juan Vázquez Guzmán and Zapatistas

Wellington group takes part in the “Week of
Worldwide Action: Juan Vázquez Guzmán Lives! The Bachajón
struggle continues!”

by Julie
Webb-PullmanJune 27, 2013

At lunchtime
today members of the Wellington Zapatista Support held a
candlelight vigil outside the Mexican Embassy in Wellington
as part of the “Week of Worldwide Action: Juan Vázquez
Guzmán Lives! The Bachajón struggle continues!”

After
constructing a small shrine with flowers and candles in
remembrance of Juan Vázquez Guzmán, an indigenous
community leader assassinated in April, the group
hand-delivered a letter to the Mexican Ambassador to New
Zealand, demanding that Guzman’s killers be brought to
justice, and an end to the blatant abuses of rights of the
Tzeltal communities of San Sebastián
Bachajón.

Grace Leung
and Paul Bruce outside the Mexican Embassy in Wellington,
New Zealand.

We, the Wellington Zapatista Support Group, have
been following with concern Mexican Federal, State and
Municipal responses to the civil resistance in defence of
their land by the ejidatarios of San Sebastián Bachajón,
adherents to The Other Campaign in the Agua Azul region of
Chiapas.

Since 2007, the ejidatarios of San Sebastián
Bachajón have suffered violence and repression at the hands
of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-backed
authorities and paramilitary organizations. Their resistance
to the take-over of Tzeltal traditional lands for
transnational projects, particularly the site of the Agua
Azul waterfalls which the ejidatarios have been responsibly
and sustainably managing for many years, has placed them
squarely in the firing line of those who seek to dispossess
them of their lands for commercial gain.

Concerted
attempts to break up the community and its resistance began
in 2009, with the detention of eight ejidatarios and
adherents to the Other Campaign by state and federal police,
and the arrest and vicious assault of Ricardo Lagunes at a
PRI paramilitary checkpoint after he left a meeting in
Bachajón. Two years later in 2011, 117 ejidatarios were
arbitrarily detained by police during an eviction attempt at
the toll booth at the entrance to the Agua Azul area. Ten,
including Pérez Álvaro, remained political prisoners for
an extended period of time.

Physical violence and
repression have been coupled with legal and judicial abuses,
including court decisions denying the rights of ejidatarios,
and their arrests and eviction in 2011 enabling authorities
to take control of the collectively-owned lands.

The
ongoing assaults on Bachajón autonomy culminated on the
night of April 24, 2013 in the assassination of Juan
Vázquez Guzmán in the doorway of his home.

Guzmán,
Secretary General of the three centres of the ejido since
April 2010, was riddled with six bullets after answering his
door – the assailant fled the scene in a red pick-up, and
no-one has yet been charged with his murder.

Hugo Blanco,
director of Peruvian magazine Lucha Indígena, this
week noted the participation of the rogue state of Israel,
notorious for its impunity for 65 years of crimes against
humanity and human rights abuses of Palestinians, in
assisting the Mexican state to repress its indigenous
peoples in Chiapas. “So far there has been no progress in
the investigations into the perpetrators of the crime; on
the contrary, harassment and persecution are constant. A few
days after the murder of Juan Vázquez Guzmán, Jorge Luis
Llaven Abarca, Secretary of Security and Civil Protection in
the State of Chiapas, announced the training that the
Israeli Ministry of Defense in Mexico will provide for the
local police,” he wrote.

This does not augur well,
either for the bringing before justice of the killers of
Juan Guzmán, or for the protection of the
collectively-owned lands of the indigenous Tzeltal from the
‘tourarism’ being practised by transnational business
interests.

In this, the “Week of Worldwide Action: Juan
Vazquez Guzman Lives! The Bachajón struggle continues!”
the Wellington Zapatista Support Group adds its voice to the
international chorus demanding justice for Juan Vázquez
Guzmán, and in support of the struggle of the ejidatarios
of San Sebastián Bachajón for their rights.

We
demand:

1. a full investigation into the assassination of
Juan Vázquez Guzmán in the doorway of his home on the
evening of April 24, 2013, and punishment of those
responsible;

3. Respect for the right of the
Tzeltal people of San Sebastián Bachajón to
self-determination and to exercise their autonomy as
stipulated in Agreement No. 169 regarding indigenous and
tribal peoples in independent countries United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the
San Andrés Accords, Document 1, 3. 1. Document 2,
II, IV (2. 3.); Document 3.1 (c, d); Document 1, Principle
of the New Relationship 5;

4. Respect for their right to
use and enjoy their natural resources, which as indigenous
peoples they have protected for centuries, as referenced in
Agreement No. 169 regarding indigenous and tribal peoples in
independent countries, pursuant to article 13.2 United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
and San Andrés Accords 1.4 B. 2.; Document 1,
Principle of the New Relationship 2; and

5. The immediate
withdrawal of all military, paramilitary, and police forces
from the entire region, such that the natural and national
treasure of Agua Azul is returned to the common ownership
from which it has been wrested, and the rights of the
ejidatarios of San Sebastián Bachajón are
upheld.

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